Providing a great experience is now a standard requirement for any successful digital product. Listening to the users, gathering data and analysing every interaction is the foundation of solid UX, but is there more to the story...? This talk will explore how brands have evolved to understand not only what people say they want, but more importantly what makes them feel good, what they actually remember, what they really value, and what makes them share this experience with the world. Using a variety of examples from old and new brands, current research and recent ideas we've explored at FutureLearn, I'll tell the story of why savvy brands no longer sell a product, but now sell an experience.

1. How experiences
sell products
@lucyblackwell | lucy.blackwell@futurelearn.com

2. Don’t eat me yet!

3. Feelings

9. Experiences make
you feel alive.

10. Challenge Fear Risk RewardInspiration Achievement

11. Challenge Fear Risk RewardInspiration Achievement
Maybe
not?

12. Choose Register Inform WaitExplore Start

13. Choose RegisterExplore Inform StartWait
50%

14. Choose RegisterExplore
Welcome
Start

15. PART 1: FEELINGS
By paying attention to the users
emotional experience we can
understand better the motivations
driving users’ decisions.

21. You are more beautiful than
you think
http://realbeautysketches.dove.com/

22. http://selfesteem.dove.co.uk
#NoLikesNeeded

23. PART 1: FEELINGS
Experiences can change how
people feel about themselves.

24. How does this make you feel?

25. Give me away!

26. Don’t eat me yet!

27. Sharing

28. Do you love anyone enough to
give them your last Rolo?

32. http://www.dandad.org/en/cadbury-gorilla/

37. PART 2: SHARING
Every experience can be seen as
a conversation, an opportunity
to connect.

38. “Strong social connections… are
essential ingredients to psychological
well-being. Experiences, much more
than material possessions, tend to
encourage these types of social
connections.”
FROM A STUDY CONDUCTED AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY TITLED ‘THE RELATIVE RELATIVITY OF MATERIAL AND EXPERIENTIAL PURCHASES.’

43. PART 2: SHARING
Experiences encourage social
activity, which people like to share
with others, so users end up selling
your product for you.

44. Memories

47. "Don't bother
with the Kings
and Queens
of England.
All of you
should learn
these dates
instead."

48. “A satisfying experience, often
becomes even more positive over
time as it is embellished in
memory.”
FROM A STUDY CONDUCTED AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY TITLED ‘THE RELATIVE RELATIVITY OF MATERIAL AND EXPERIENTIAL PURCHASES.’

49. PART 3: MEMORIES
Experiences get better with age,
as the story is retold again and
again.

50. B A

54. http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/08/the-new-york-times-built-a-slack-bot-to-help-decide-which-stories-to-post-to-social-media/

55. PART 3: MEMORIES
Surprises can make an experience
very memorable.

56. *This may contain sugar, dairy & nuts!
Eat me*! Save the flag!

57. Value

58. FROM ‘THE HIDDEN COST OF VALUE-SEEKING: PEOPLE DO NOT ACCURATELY FORECAST THE ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF EXPERIENTIAL PURCHASES’
“Survey subjects rated life experiences
as making them happier and as a
better use of money than buying
objects… But they actually spent their
cash on material goods, whose value is
more easily quantifiable.”

60. http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/the-drowned-man-a-hollywood-fable

63. PART 4: VALUE
Physical mementos can enrich
an experience and make the
product feel more valuable.

66. Verification builds trust, and providing a
more detailed transcript to show the
quality of the work done, as well as the
effort put in adds value.

67. PART 4: VALUE
Customised mementos will make
an experience feel more unique
and valuable to the user.

69. $14,916.00 Raised.
169 Songs written.

70. GREAT EXPERIENCES….
Make us feel alive…
Are very share-able…
Create a lasting memory…
Add value…

71. Your memento. Thank you!
@lucyblackwell | lucy.blackwell@futurelearn.com